[Olorin]

In our own society, we punish only those who perform illegal actions, not those who are motivated by "evil" desires. I think it was just yesterday or the day before that a man was executed for the murder of an abortion doctor and his bodyguard. The assasin obviously believed that his actions were just--in his mind he was executing a murderer. As a society, we punish the assasin for murder, because it is viewed as an evil act.

If you could somehow cast a detect alignment spell in our world, think of what would happen if you cast it in various places. Lawful evil in the game is defined as someone who acts for selfish reasons, and obeys the law to avoid punishment. There are lots of people in our world like this. People who wouldn't stop to help someone else if they didn't think they would be rewarded. Or people who will only give money to charity if it will gain them enough PR to justify the expense.

If you went around BG2 killing everyone of evil alignment, most in the society would view you as similar to the assasin of an abortion doctor. Though you have killed someone you knew to be evil, you did not have the authority to punish them, and in some cases, you kill people who do not break any laws.

Is a good character still "good" if they go around murdering everyone they don't like in the name of goodness?

Instead, you should work to expose the evil and unlawful _actions_ of evil people in the game, and defend yourself if they attack you for it. If you don't have confidence the local authorities to pursue certain issues (e.g. slavery) you may occasionally have to take matters into your own hands.

Also, as you pointed out, not all evildoers do things that are worthy of the death penalty. An "evil" merchant's transgression might just be that he charges high prices to gullible customers. The know alignment spell doesn't tell you anything about what they have done, so it's not a valid reason for killing someone.

An excellent book to read that explores this issue in the context of a fantasy world is _Villians by Necessity_ by Eve Forward. The premise is that Good has won, and has gone too far. If a band of villians can't restore the balance, the world is doomed.

Some questions to ponder:
Is genocide good or evil? How about when practiced on goblin tribes?
If you had a magic spell that would turn a thief or bandit into a "good" person, is that a good thing, or are you destroying their free will?
Is destroying evil necessarily a good act?